Jellyfish flying and testing the HD GoPro

The weather is soooo sh.... here. I got a chance to get in the air when my roommate borowed me his paraglider so I finnaly got the chance to test the HD GoPro in the air. I am amased about it, so small with a realy good quality and wide view. It was funny to be in the air with a praglider after 2 years but it was a nice glide down with Avax XC2. Here is a video of jellyfish flying :) Can`t wait to get my GoPro in the air with a hang glider.

It`s christmas time :)

Both me and Nena we wish you all a merry christmas and happy new year. Let it be full of personal victories, love all around and smile on every corner :)

Here is an e-card for that we made for you all :)

AEROS WINTER RACE 2009 (24th to 28th of February)

AEROS is proud to present first FAI 2 hang gliding competition in Europe in 2010. The site of Ajdovscina and Kovk (Slovenia) starting place has been choosen for its unique flying conditions where it is possible to race the ridge and flats already at this time of year.




So all the pilots willing to strecth their wings as soon as possible in the season YOU are all welcome to make the competition as best as it can. The Kobala open 2009 organisers will be in position to make your tasks as long, as safe and technical to compromise wintery muscles :) Party included of course.

AEROS is here to award the best pilots with great prices:

1st price: 1000 EUR cash or credit note for 30% discount when ordering a new Combat

2nd price: 500 EUR cash or credit note for new Viper S harness

3rd price: 300 EUR cash or tailplane

4th-10th place: small prices

AEROS will have in this period of time also DEMO days so the gliders will be available to test fly.

HOME PAGE of the competition is coming soon on

http://hg.sffa.org/aeros_wr/

You can find the FACEBOOK event HERE

The area is well known for its early good conditions for flying you can find some flights from that period of time

FLIGHT 1
FLIGHT 2
FLIGHT 3
FLIGHT 4
FLIGHT 5

Deep in the autumn

Well we are deeply in to the autumn here already and the weather is total sh.... I had three flights since the beginning of october and now the town is in fog for already 14 days. Realy waiting for some rain and some sun afterwards. In the mean time I spent some days in Spain to see Nena who is there as erasmus student, seems like I brought bad weather with me from Slovenia as it was raining almost every day but still we had a great time there. This week Regina, Primoz, Tim, Ute and a lot of other German pilots came to fly here but got in to this foghy air so unfortunately they had small flights but it was realy nice to see them again after a long time.


I can now officialy say that next year the SLOVENIAN OPEN will be held again in Tolmin on almost the same dates as last year, so you`re all invited to strecth your comp wings for the last time in inland Europe in the season. Hm, seems like we are able to make also the first one in Europe as we have a very good ridge to fly REALY early in the year. Maybe but maybe Bassano won`t be the first competition in the season anymore :)

As you were able to see YOUTUBE has cut down the music in many of my videos, which is understandable by the copyrights but it is not nice to see just the picture of the video so I will be soon puting the videos to vimeo and maybe they will loosen a bit on this issue.

Last week we also had season price giving of our Free flying association where in the hang gliding category overall the price went of course to our best pilot Primoz Gricar. For OLC the first price went to Stanislav Galovec and for national league to Franc Peternel. I got a nice trophy for third place in national league. Seems like we finnaly managed the sistem that works good for getting the team members for next season. We all agred on it and the sistem works good, for now. I am in a bad 6th position so Ager is in big question. I hope they will allow six pilots for nation but untill they don`t publish local regulations for the comp I won`t know.

Yesterday our 4 students Polona, Marko, Vasja and Severin made a theoretical part of getting the licence so soon after 2 years they will be pushed out of nests. Congrats!

Croatia open 2009 video

A bit more artistic aprroach to the video this time but a good memory to have on a computer disc :) It has been a long time now since my last posting. I am now living in Nova Gorica 40 km south of Tolmin for my scholl and guess what, there is a nice ridge where it is possible to fly almost all winter. I was at the start now two times and been two times bombed out :) Too early starts.... It is amazing to step in front of scholl and check on the take off for what is going on. It can also be depresive sometimes as you know that you can not go there on that day and they are all sky high :) Today I just ordered a new Helmet HD GoPro camera so in near future you can expect more interesting views of our loved sport. I hope it will be shiped soon, but, for now, enjoy this one :)

Croatia open 2009 from Matjaz Klemencic on Vimeo.

Monte Cucco the video

So finnaly I managed to make the video also from Monte Cucco this year. We had a pre pre worlds there this year and I heard a lot about flying there that is why we went to see that. Unfortunatly there was north wind trough out all the week so we didn`t taste the real deal at Monte Cucco but it was still nice. Also unfortunatly I ddn`t copy all the videos from Nenas computer so Ijus got some take offs. But, theyeare mostly from the first day when the task was cancelled so we could buzz around the take off of Monte Cucco and sure it was big fun.

Enjoy the vid

The video from Slovenian open 2009

Enjoy :)

For a better quality use the link to vimeo

Slovenian open 2009 from Matjaz Klemencic on Vimeo.

KOBALA OPEN 2009

So we ended up the competition of Slovenian open 2009. We had a wonderfull weather with 4 tasks, many women competitors and many great comp pilots. All together provided the competition with a good quality flying, great new friendships and whole lot of fun doing it. I puted myself too much work with helping organiser and flying together but the joy of seeing pilots happy at the end of competition counted for all. The weather realy worked for us as the cloudbase was higher then usualy so predicting the weather was a hard job. The tasks were made trough out all the valleys so the pilots could feel the touch of our area in all its possibilities. I would like to thank all the pilots and support teams to providing us such a great comp with such a great flying and a great charma over all competition.

You can find the results of the competition HERE

Jamie Shelden was also writing about the comp on her BLOG
Thank you Jamie for a beautifull words from our Soca valley :)

I took my time today to organise the photos from the comp and you can see them in this slideshow.

Back home after Monte Cucco and Buzet

So we ended our 14 day comp holidays at Buzet and Monte Cucco. On the last day of Buzet we were suprised by the win of my friend Alan who flew constantly good and win the overall competition in front of Dan and Miroslav. He was making a joke that if he wins then we can cut his hair sooooo, we did it :) at the price giving ceremony. At Buzet we flew all 5 days of the competition and then went on to Monte Cucco. Flavio was so kind that he let us a window of 1 day to come from Buzet to Monte Cucco and relax before the competition. Otherwise we should drive trough the night and fly in the morning already. Competition at Monte Cucco was from the weather view not that good but we managed to make 3 tasks and a valid competition. We flew always to the north side or at Tree pizzi or at Monte Cucco north take off. I was again flying quite good until the last day when I f.... all with landing just a bit more than minimum distance. We were waiting under the cloud for the start and 4 minutes before the start cloud dissapired and then I had quite a rough fly in the lee side of Monte Cucco. Alex Ploner the world champion won the competition overal just a bit ahead of Primoz Gricar and Davide Guiduci. As promessed bellow you will find also a picture of Aeros Combat L 2010 which Primoz flew with at Buzet and Monte Cucco. Glider has amazing thermal posibilities and glides very very good BUT so does the pilot :) The glider looks amazing already on the ground. In 14 days I managed to get my feeling better in the air also with a help of Primoz as we changed the lenght of my hang loop and that made a significant difference in handling of the glider so now I feel even more confortable at it. Next week we start with a national open competition KOBALA OPEN. Many pilots are coming from Netherlands, Germany, Ukraine, Hungary, Italy and Macedonia. It`s gonna be a colorfull group on the start and we hope for a good weather. As this year on worlds we will do the same with a blog from the competition so you will be able to interact with the competition every day.

Blog link is HERE

So the show must go on they say :)

Here are some pictures from Buzet and Monte Cucco

Start Buzet

Primoz landing at Buzet

Take off at Raspadalica

Alan and cuting his hair

Winners of Croatia open and Chezh open


Primoz and his AEROS proto

Regina at Tree Pizzi

Christa take off

Winners of Monte Cucco trophy

Winner takes it all :)

4th task, Buzet Croatia

And again it happened. Same like last year I made a mistake on one day and been bombed out. We had a task 95 km long and the day looked better then the previous. I thermal up to the celling of 1800m and started with the first time but by myself. Over the valley I found no lift in a no landing area and returned back to Buzet flying trough the gorge very low. I managed to the safe landing and then looked at the others flying more to the north with nice thermals. Dan won the day ahead of Primoz. Today it is very windy so we don't know about the task but I hope for it as I fell down on the overall results a lot. Today is the last day of competition. That would be all for now.

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S storitvijo Windows Live lahko organizirate, urejate in dajete v skupno rabo fotografije.

3. task, Buzet 130 km and the RESULTS

Seems like 130 km task was too much today to make it. We had a very beautiful flight in to the center of Istria and on the last part blue sky waited for us. Many of us landed when flying into this blue area. Jan from Chech republic flew the most but ended up before goal. I finished 6th today Alan was 5th and Primoz was second. It was a hard day with easy thermals so we were scraching first kilometers really slow, but the view payed all. Primoz spend 6 and a half hours in the air so it tells how hard it was. The competition is running smooth and we will fly more for next two days. I improve my position to 6th place overall so I look forward for next two days. I managed to get the results to the blog as Leo lend me his computer with mobile internet. Here you have the results from today and overall results. It is made like a picture but I could not make it other way.

P.s.: Sorry for not writing the emails back but here I am totally unpluged so I hope to get it in Italy and respond to you all.

Here are the results

2nd task, Buzet, Croatia

Today the front was very near to us but it passed us around so we had a nice 84 task over the flatlands. I was doing great in the middle but went down 10 km before goal. Me and Primoz landed near the last turn point while looking at the others passing above as the shade disapired. Seems like we will fly whole week and then we hope to get in time for Monte Cucco. Joze Frim won the day ahead of Alan, good job! Now sleeping at a relaxing start of Raspadalica.

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Preprosta skupna raba fotografij s storitvijo Fotografije Windows Live™. Povleci in spusti

Today we had a 74km task. It was a blue sky day with scattered thermals. Quite hard for me as made a lot of mistakes during the flight. Many low safes but in the end i made it to the goal. There were I think from 5 to 10 pilots in the goal but we had 4 start gates so no one knows. Primoz is here with his new aeros 2010 proto. It looks realy good and the pictures will come when I get wirelles, the phone just doesnt work. That is all for today.

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S storitvijo Windows Live lahko organizirate, urejate in dajete v skupno rabo fotografije.

Packing time

We finnaly packed up all the things we need for another 14 days away at the comps. First we will go to Croatia to Buzet and fly the Croatian and CHE nationals. After that we will move to Monte Cucco for so called pre pre worlds. It is been long time since my last comp from Bassano. It will be a good training for our nationals that starts on 16th of August. If you would like to join us at Kobala open feel free to sign in at

www.sffa.org/hg/open2009

So tommorow morning our car will be filled to the roof and of we go. Finnaly. I hope to get some wirelles conection to bring you the touch of our flying.

Taking my girlfriend to the sky

When Slovenian team was packing everything for Laragne me and my girlfriend went to test our new AEROS Target tandem. Nice evening flight from Kobala showed me that the glider is safe in all prospects, easy to handle nice in the thermals and stable on start.
Mean while I am checking all the pictures that are coming now or from blogs or from Facebook and have mixed emotions while I am not there seeing all the people and feel the rush of the competition. Well Slovenia has a realy good team this year and I am sure that it is going to be thrilling to look at results every day. So for all of you who are in Laragne enjoy the time there!

Here is the video from a easy flight with my girlfriend

Last national league comp day 118 km

After my long no flying days we got the date for the last comp in our national league. Lucky for me only 3 best flights were counted this year so I had a chance to make something out of it aldo I did not flew last 2 comps. We had this task on my home mountain Kobala and finnaly a good day was forecasted and even strogn wind from the morning calmed down. We set up a task of 118 km zigzaging the valley all around but it was interesting task with many possible tracks. I was lucky holding first position until one point on the mountain where I could not reach 30 m more to get it so I had to cross the valley and start back from quite low. Here we got together with other pilots. We flew together but the first tree outclimbed me and passed me for some minutes. I ended up 4th on this day and 3rd in overall national league. Quite lucky I guess after being grounded by the injury. My student Polona made some realy nice pictures from the competition. Enjoy them.

Rough air in Bassano or a comercial for sprog settings in Laragne :)

I was browsing my old video from Bassano this year and I remember when I flew with a camera and had a small weightless moment. Finnaly I found that spot in the video where I get a punch from above and as u look at the video it actually does`t look that bad at all but in first hand experience you get big eyes for a moment :)

Enjoy the vid, the happening is at 12 second.

Back again!

Last week I made the test flight and the hand is working good. First I wanted to go with an Atlas glider just to see how the hand is working but it was better ecery day so I decided to make a flight with my Combat. We went together with one of my students who was flying an Seedwings Kestrel glider. After the start my compeo shuted down and I was not able to make it work again. Seems like the pressure in the pitot tube made it shut down... That is what I saw later on the landing. So, I flew with out it and it was no problem to fly with out it. The day was realy nice and it was interesting to feel the air a bit different after a long time. Observing the height every turn and trying to feel drops and ups while moving trough the air. We made it to the 3rd mountain the last one to where the students made it, or, I let them. We climbed to the cloud base and I waved to him that we fly to the mountain ridge in the back of that mountain. It was superb feeling to see him flying at the peak of mountains with me.
So the compeo is now on its way to Germany to get fixed. I hope that it will be soon.
After that there was an Outdoor show in Kobarid just 15 km from my home town. Paragliding race, kayaks, downhill bikers, climbers.....
A week of celebrating the outdoor sports. It was nice to see the paragliding gang again. There are always sleeples nights with them and of course a lot of fun :) On the last day they made one seperate competition just around Kobarid to let people see the competition from the ground. There was camera crew in the air and on the ground transfering live to the center of Kobarid. Realy good organised week.

From now on fingers crossed for some better weather....

Here is the video from MTB race that I made

Dual MTB race on OUTDOOR show in Kobarid from Matjaz Klemencic on Vimeo.

D-Bagging at outdoor show

Rehabilitation is coming to an end (I hope)

Since my last visit to a doctor the hand is working almost perfectly. It is interesting that I can lift heavy loads but almost not able to cut bread with a knife. It is just one position that is hurting and I belive that I don`t use this one in the air. So how to know this? By trying to fly of course. Today I might take a scholl glider and try the moving of the hands in the air. I tried with a speedbar and hooked in a harness but you can feel everything only by trying to fly.
In the mean time I was able to do other stuff. I can say that I had a realaxed time with some BBQs next to our river with our club members. One time we got together to say goodbye to our club member and his girlfriend who are going on a 1 year trip around Asia by public transport. They went with the car for a piece of road where they will leave the car. So, why not draw something on their car. Well let he pictures speak for themselfs :) In betwen I worked with our students who suprised me with a 2 h fligh around our valley. Here comes the time where they will need to make the licence and I get them of my chests :) Another group is coming now so we will work with them now from begining. They have a hill lessons made so now the mountain jumps are coming.
In betwen the weather was working great for me as there was not that many realy flying days and it looks like it is all improving now. Actualy here are the temperatures like in the mid summer... We will see what next months brings...
So I hope that the wind calms down today and in the evening I get a touch of the air again.

Working with the students

The two travelers

We will see what police will have to say about it :)

Waterfall Kozjak in Kobarid

The club gang

GROUNDE(A)D(TH)

One month ago I easly fell of a motorcycle and catched myself on a hand. It was a small pain that lasted for a long time but I had no problem with it. I wen`t to Bassano and the pain was almost gone. After coming back to work with some heavy lifting it started with pain again. I wen`t to see a doctor and they diagnosed a ribbed musle in the hand and forecasted a long rehabilitation of two months... Tomorrow I will meet a specialist who will scan my hand trough CT to see if I need a surgery or not. I hope that I don`t need one, because after that I maybe even won`t be able to fly this season anymore... I fell on a hard ground in one day, from goals that I made for myself this year to a zero. As I work trough student service I also don`t get payed for beeing off from work. It all depends of tomorow so fingers crossed.
Anyway there will be at least 2 months of time to realy work with our hanggliding students here. First group is slowly proceding to a licenced pilots and another group is coming now to make their first mountain flights.
On Saturday we were spending our time at office near landing and as I looked to the sky I saw a very fammiliar glider in the sky coming in for a landing. It was no one else as Elio Cataldi who flew from Vitorrio Venneto near Bassano to our place. It was nice to meet whole Cataldi family again and have a nice panckaces in the evening.
So fingers crossed for tommorow, let`s hope for the best.

The video from Bassano

Here is the video that I made from Montegrappa trophy. Thanks to Nena and Irena for a stady hand :)


Montegrappa trophy 2009 from Matjaz Klemencic on Vimeo.

Last task cancelled, Slovenian team holds 3rd position in Bassano

On the last day of competition the wind conditions on the start were not good enough to make a safe start of competitors. Even in the air all the local pilots said that it would be very turbulent in the air if we start. Many of the pilots did not even assembled the gliders.
After a 4 nice taskes it was a good desicion to cancel the task on the start and leave Bassano in nice memories.
So Slovenian team made it to a 3rd place in overall team scoring. Well done.
The competition went trough with a nice flying, strong conditions and from time to time very turbulent air. The organisation was on a high level, only the number of competition pilots and free flying pilots in the air was from time to time quite scary. That is why there were some mid air qolitions too.
Overall results:

1 RUHMER MANFRED Icaro Laminar Z9 14.8
2 HEINRICHS Gerolf
Moyes LITESPEED RS4
3 REISINGER ROBERT
LITESPEED
8 GRICAR PRIMOZ
Aeros Combat L
11 PETERNEL FRANC
Aeros Combat L
44 ALAN SATTLER
Aeros Combat L
66 KLEMENCIC MATJAZ
Aeros Combat L

WOMEN

1. CORINNA SCHWIEGERSHAUSEN
2. MONIQUE WERNER
3. TOBLER CAROLE



For my flying I can`t say any good words about it. Seems like that first day with a problem on the landing left me something in my mind so I was truly comp relaxed finnaly on the last task, but still to late :)
For the future of my comps this year there is still a question where will we go. It all depends of the money yet again...

124 km task, finally at goal

As I have made all mistakes I could this week,I finally made it to goal. Even if the sky looked worst than any day before they set up a task of 124 km. The day was again rough with a strong thermals somwhere even if we had a high layer clouds and the sun was only on the half of the task. So a lot of flying this year here in Bassano, parody to the last one where we had cold weather with only one official task. Finaly the whole Slovenian team was in goal as I made it :) Our team is now 3rd behind Austrians and Italians. Tomorow, they said, we will have a short task as many pilots have to go home. We hope for the best...

Feeling exausted after the landing :)

Third task somwhere around 115km

Seems like we will fly all 5 days here in Bassano. Today they set up a task to the east side of Bassano with crossing the Piave river. The air weas quite rough again. Soon after the start I saw a Litespeed RS turned around on the ground with a rescue chute beside. The guy was ok, he was trying to avoid the paraglider in the termal and touched another hang glider in the air. The glider and he is ok. So we were avoiding the clouds again on the start, they were a bit higher today so it was a bit but just a bit easier. I was trying to cross the Piave river tree times and it seemd like it won`t be enough to rich the safe area on the ridge, because there was almost none landing below that ridge. Wineyard by wineyard. I had enogugh one wineyard on the first day and I have blue thies now :)
So I ended up on crossing... Seems like I am having a big problems this competition here, it is not a problem to fly and be with the others, problems are in desicions...
I don`t know who was first but still Rhumer was in second or first, Gerolf was third. Primoz in first 10 and Franc in first 20. Alan was short few km before goal.
On the landing it was quite scary when one pilot came realy low and touched the top of the tree and crashed below. He is ok. Another one landed and got a good punch in the back with a nose of the glider. I don`t know how is he.

Second day

Christian Chiech won the day today before Manfred Rhumer. Franc Peternel was somewhere around 8 and Primoz around 10. Alan made it to goal I was short in the middle of the race at about 60km. Glider is flying but he wants to go a to the left. We will fix it tomorow.
More later...

The giant is back (Manfred Rhumer)

Today we had a task of 108 km. The cloud base was realy low all the time so we had a nervous time to wait for the start time. Around 40 pilots made it to goal, we will know more tommorow. The giant of our sport Manfred Rhumer came back to the scene on this competition and won the first day. Congrats to him.

I was short today on the first point and nearly crashed my self making the 180 turn 3m above the ground. I am ok, the glider is also... Well tomorow is another day..
Primoz and Franc Peternel made it to goal, Alan went down somwhere in betwen the task.
Today we have a party here in Antica Abazzia. We need to eat something after a looong day :)


P.s.: Nena flew for 3 hours today in a tandem... Our friend Arthur from Germany took here to the sky again today and she is trilled about it. Well sometimes it needs to be all around..... :)

Pictures from a first training day in Bassano

Carole Tobler on a landing

Nena in a tandem flight


Primoz with Aeros and a new tail